Australian Prime Minister John Howard today … called the plan ridiculous. “That is a thoroughly silly proposal and utterly out of touch with reality,” Howard said.

Reaction from us was swift but bland:

At the U.N. climate change conference in Kenya, U.S. officials slammed the proposal. “We would not see in this case this kind of approach as being the most constructive one or the most effective one,” said Paula Dobriansky, the U.S. undersecretary of state for democracy and global affairs.

Seriously, though, while the tax proposal seems unlikely to go anywhere, sooner or later–probably sooner given the accelerated rate of climate change we are witnessing–nations that refuse to take action on climate will be seen as rogues and punished accordingly by the world community. We must join the fight soon, lest some French satricial TV show label us “Freedom-Fry-eating polar-bear killers.”

There is absolutely no evidence whatsoever that temperatures and CO2 atmospheric content are rising at anything other than a linear rate. The posts you refer to do not prove any accelertion (the rate of change of a linear quantity) whatsoever.

BK, if you scratched the surface of a peer-reviewed scientific journal you would find plenty of evidence. It is clear that you are hiding from the evidence. Here it is for you graphically, in case you cannot actually read the IPCC report, but it is not just a matter of the rate of CO2 increase. There are feedbacks that can accelerate change – for example heating reduces ice coverage, which increases absorption of solar radiation. This is alredy happening. Melting of the Russian steppes – releasing more methane than you can possibly imagine would greatly accelerate warming.

“The rapid forcing of a non-linear system has a high prospect of producing surprises,” (p. 78 of the IPCC report).